High school teacher applauded for mentorship

Thursday

Apr 20, 2017 at 12:00 PMApr 27, 2017 at 3:58 PM

By Julia Hudgins The Dispatch

Jihan Harvey, assistant principal at Lexington Senior High School, will be the first to brag about math teacher Corrette Miller’s mentoring skills. And she should know, as Miller mentored Harvey during her first year of teaching.

“Mrs. Miller was my math mentor; she really helped a lot with how I structure my classroom and my classroom management. She was always a listening ear for her mentees …” Harvey said. “She’s also really good with the students, she meets them where they are, and she brings them to where they need to be. She does not prejudge, and is just like a mother figure in the classroom.”

Miller said she was originally drawn to teaching because she knew the potential positive impact a strong teacher has on the lives of her students. However after 28 years in the profession, she said she learned that through working as a mentor she is able to not only improve other teachers' skills, but she can also assist exponentially more children.

“I can affect each one of (my students) lives,” Miller said. “But if I can teach other teachers to know to treat (students) the way they should be treated and to be good teachers, then that just multiplies the number of students whose lives that I touch.”

Her positive influence has turned heads not only throughout the ninth-grade academy at the high school where she works, but also with teachers across the school. To thank her for her commitment to providing her students with the best academic experience possible, her peers and administrators voted Miller to be the high school’s teacher of the year.

It is an award, in Harvey’s opinion, that is more than well deserved.

“She most definitely deserves this honor, and it really speaks to who she is,” Harvey said. “She has only been here two-and-a-half years, and she’s already won teacher of the year, because not only does she do well with working with students, she does well with working with her colleagues. ... Everyone kind of just shoots things by her.”

Miller said she was honored by the award, but credits it not to her personal work ethic, but to the “amazing” teachers she works alongside each day in the ninth-grade academy.

“We are like a team, and they are so awesome. Being part of that team, that is probably why I got it, because the teachers on this hall are really really good …” Miller said “It’s also humbling because there are so many teachers on this staff who are deserving, so it was a shock. I mean, it’s such a shock because I am still learning. I learn new things every week and every month. I don’t think you ever get to the point in the teaching profession where you know everything.”

Miller said she is committed to constantly growing in the field to which she has dedicated her life. Over the years, she said, her perspective as a teacher has shifted; at first she thought strictly focusing on the content to be learned would be best for her students.

However, she said she quickly realized classroom management is just as important as what she teaches, because if the students do not see their value they will not be in the right place to learn, and will ultimately not perform as well.

“When I first started teaching I was so interested in teaching the math content to every student, and I’m obviously still interested in that. But now I want every single child, every single day to feel like they are important in my classroom,” Miller said. “I have learned that to get them to learn the math content they first have to know that they are very, very important to you every single day. No one should be invisible in your classroom on any day.

Miller explained that her personal history allows her to connect with her students because she was born in the Lexington community, and was raised three miles away from the school. Miller said she feels that she is able to thrive as a teacher within Lexington City Schools because both she and the high school complement one another well.

“You really feel like you get to know (the student), you get to know their families, their goals. The classes are small enough where you get to know every student. Yeah, it’s such a great place to teach. I wish I would have come back sooner; this is the best place to teach.”

Julia Hudgins can be reached at (336) 249-3981, ext. 213, or at julia.hudgins@the-dispatch.com. Follow Julia on Twitter: @LexDispatchJH